Voyage Day 1 - Monday 28 July

Our suggested check-in time was 12.30pm, so we set off from our hotel close to their final check-out time of 12 noon.  There was some delay in getting away as it seemed that the yellow cab driver had never heard of the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal and we and the hotel bellboy had to give him some basic directions!

Here's our cabin for the next 8 days ....

Nice view ....!

A bottle of champagne awaited us on our arrival

We got there well enough in the end, although the local signposting to the terminal was pretty low key.  Our cases were immediately loaded on to trollies and there were large signs around saying the tipping was optional.  With passport and e-ticket in hand, we progressed first of all through security – much less stringent than when flying – and went to the check-in desks.  That all went through smoothly and quickly and we were given a batch number for boarding later.

Room with a view!

We've started moving ....

We were then asked to wait in a lounge area (no free wifi available) until our batch number was eventually called and we moved forward.  We managed to skip the ‘Embarkation New York 12 noon to 1pm’ photo opportunity and we were soon on the ship.  We had to find our own way to our balcony cabin on Deck 11 and were greeted with a complimentary bottle of bubbly and a note that our cabin steward was called Bert.  We had got into our cabin at 1.15pm.

Verrazano Narrows Bridge at the entrance to New York Harbour.  The QM2 was designed so that it would just pass underneath

There was a large amount of storage space in our cabin, the bathroom was generous with a large shower cubicle and, again, lots of storage space.  You could walk past the foot of the bed easily – not always the case on most ships and there was a good size two-seater sofa plus a generously-sized balcony area with two adjustable chairs and a small table.  There was however no way we could make a hot drink in our cabin, but there was 24-hour room service free of charge.

Toiletries supplied on the ship were very good – all Gilchrist & Soames items – conditioner, shower gel, body cream, shampoo, cotton wool balls and cotton buds.

Personal welcome from Samuel Cunard!

Television channels available- BBC World, Sky News, Sky Sports News, BBC Drama and some American news channels plus a channel showing the camera shot off the bow.  There are some Cunard promotional channels as well as film channels and some German channels.  There is no navigation channel on as such as Royal Caribbean but they do broadcast the on board expert/celebrity talks.

We're definitely on the right ship

We had reserved a cabin on the starboard side to be able to take advantage of the views of New York as we departed.  We later realised too that we would be on the sunny side of the ship each day on our transatlantic run as our cabin would be facing south (if the sun decided to shine, that is!)

We decided to look for lunch and hoped that the Golden Lion pub wouldn’t be too crowded – it wasn’t - and there was a menu of typical pub classics plus 3 draught lagers (Heineken, Budweiser and Stella) and two draught beers (Boddington’s, Old Speckled Hen plus draught Guinness.  There was only one hot dessert on offer – chocolate cake with chocolate sauce - not quite a ‘pub classic’ in my book!

It was then that we started to notice that there were piano tuners on the ship, attending to the many instruments on board.

We met our very likeable ‘Bert’, who turned out to be more like Bert Kwouk than a Bert from London’s East End.  He clearly knew our names as he introduced himself.  After unpacking most of our belongings, it was time for the 4pm ‘muster’.  We didn’t set off to that early enough and, by 3.45pm, all the lifts were closed off so we had to use the stairs to get there – but it was down four decks rather than up!  Muster went through efficiently after we had listened to all the usual instruction, donned our life jackets and had been reminded that if we saw anyone go overboard, we were to shout ‘Man overboard’!

We were ready to go.  We don’t know if we got a ‘band’ send off from the dockside as we were so engrossed with the view from our own balcony across to the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, the Hudson River and Manhattan that we weren’t encouraged to look out from the other side as we left as the cruise terminal was little more than a glorified commercial dock dealing mainly in cargo.

Announcements are in English, given by UK English speakers, although the most important announcements are also given in German as there are about 400 or so Germans on board who will be staying on the ship after Southampton for a two-night, one sea day journey on to Hamburg. The QM2 then continues on to Norway before returning to Southampton for another transatlantic voyage.  In fact on Day 3 we met an American couple (he was born and raised in Scotland and was now very old) who were on our voyage and who were then going to see relatives in the UK before returning transatlantic once the QM2 had returned from her Norwegian cruise.

Cunard do refer to this as a voyage and not a cruise!